August 15 11pm
Most of you have heard the story......for those that haven't, let me summarize it: A large truck passes under a low lying overpass, the driver doesn't pay close enough attention to the posted maximum height limitation and the truck gets stuck. It's too large to fit under the overpass and has wedged itself under the bridge......as the police officers, fire department and multiple other people stand around trying to figure out how to solve the problem a little boy speaks up and says "why don't you just let the air out of the tires?" So, that may not be the exact rendition of the story, but you get the point. Sometimes we get lost in the details and miss the most simplistic solution. This pretty much represents the rough evening and early morning Parker had. As Heather pointed out in last night's blog Parker's O2 requirement had risen pretty dramatically. He was needing as much as 80% oxygen and was also having trouble expelling the CO2 from his lungs. I called early this morning to check on his progress. The nurse said that it hadn't gotten much better over night and that the docs had ordered a panel of blood work and cultures to be done to determine if he was getting another infection. The docs were "rounding" in a while and she would try to get more info on what their plan of attack would be as Parker was heading down a pretty dark tunnel pretty quickly. Well, our evening visit brought much better news......you see the day nurse simply let the air out of the tires......during a morning assessment she noticed that his breathing tube was loose.......as she checked it more carefully she noticed the tape that secures it had become too moist and loosened its grip on the tube enough that it had come out ever so slightly......once she adjusted its placement and re taped it.....presto Chango.....Parker began to get better.......something so simple as the placement and securement of his tube had caused a lot of problems for quite some time while eluding the prognosis of the docs. Now his needs are still a bit high, but O2 needs in the low fifties is much better than in the high seventies........the roller coaster chugs on. The other piece of good news of the day was that both boys had positive reports on their eye exams. Neither of them showed any signs of abnormal growth.......we'll take that little gem of good news and live on it for awhile:):)
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Just plug the darn thing in!
Oh how my heart goes out to you both! Those simple solutions to giant problems are rare in Neonatal ICU.
It reminds me of when Casey was in the hospital, finally stabalized, and doing better, when another much sicker,premie baby came into ICU. Since Casey was the "healthier" baby, they moved him to a different isolette (it sort of looked like a large. low aquarium with an electric range hood above it that contained lights, all hooked up to a bunch of monitors taped to him.) They put the new, sicker baby where Casey had been, closer to the action.
I got out of the way while all that transpired, and about 15 minutes later Casey's doctor dropped by, just as one of Casey's monitors went off - this one indicating that Casey's temperature was dropping rapidly. The nurses were scrambling, lining up for whatever instructions the doctor would have, when Casey's doctor reached up and plugged his isolette cord into the wall! In the flurry of moving the healthy baby to a new spot, they had neglected to plug Casey's isolette into the outlet that lit and heated the unit. Tiny, fragile Casey was lying in an air conditioned room with only a diaper and T shirt and no heating rays warming him in the best Neonatal hospital in the Northwest!!
It's not like Casey was going to freeze or that the monitors didn't warn us something was wrong, but oh my gosh! Was our doctor furious!! It was actually comforting to see a professional be such a champion for our tiny baby. Those nurses had a whole lot of explaining to do and there were lots of tears and apologizes for their mistake.
Casey warmed right up, his scans leveled off and he continued to improve. But I'll never forget our doctor chastising those two girls to just "make sure you plug the darn thing into the wall!"
I'm rambling about all this to encourage you. Casey left the hospital tiny, but once he got growing, he didn't stop until he reached 6' tall and could bench press 200 pounds. Tyler and Parker will get there too. Ya gotta focus on the good stuff. I promise you that you will have more "air let out of your tires" as those boys approach taking off the training wheels, or pulling that first tooth or jumping off the high dive. Life poses lots of complex problems that the solutions are often simple. Keep smilin' and I'll keep prayin'.
Cindy Cutts
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